Chapter 229: Healing Lord Alekin.
Inside the tent, the air was thick with the scent of herbs and blood. A healer was quietly wrapping a bandage around Lord Alekin’s severed arm, where a deep burned gash still wept through the linen. His face lit up the moment he saw the girls enter, despite the heavy bruise-like shadows under his eyes, a clear mark of blood loss and fatigue.
"You’re here?" he breathed, almost disbelieving.
Ren stepped forward, her gaze fixed on the injury. She gently gestured to the healer. "Leave us, please. I’ll take care of it."
Once they were alone, she knelt beside his cot, her voice low but firm. "Let me heal you. That wound will take months to mend on its own."
But Lord Alekin shook his head, pain flickering across his expression, not just physical pain, but something deeper. "I deserve it, the pain," he murmured. "I failed you. I stood by while my family tormented you. I did nothing when I should have..."
"You couldn’t stop them, you couldn’t soften Araben’s heart, you couldn’t force them to love or accept me," Ren said quietly, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
He was drowning in guilt for a past he couldn’t rewrite. Maybe, he could be nicer, but the past must remain buried to let the future come and shine.
"Please," Gloria said softly, her voice trembling, "let her heal you. In this weather, you shouldn’t leave it unattended."
Around them, the infirmary was already overflowing with wounded soldiers. If their commander remained weak, lying among the injured, it would only break morale. They needed to see their Lord stand again. Many of them were listening to them. They wanted to see how Princess Reneira was going to heal him.